Hasta La Gadget!

For those unaware, Carphone Warehouse is a warehouse that sells carphones in Europe, Jupiter and other locales in the known galaxy. It also sells smartphones and tablets. And according to the leaked flyer that we’ve acquired, the long-awaited Motorola Xoom 2 (or Xoom II, as it were) will be landing in Ireland before Christmas. The price? €399.90, or around $545, for the WiFi-only edition with 16GB of inbuilt storage. Other specs include Android 3.2 (what, no Ice Cream Sandwich?), an 8.2-inch touchpanel, and much, much more. In fact, CW calls it “everything a tablet should be.” Truth in advertising? You be the judge.

[Thanks, Artyom]

Motorola Xoom 2 officially priced at 400 Euros, coming this Christmas to Carphone Warehouse originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Boo! No, that’s not your doorbell ringing again, that’s HTC popping out of nowhere in order to toss a Nah-nah-nah-boo-boo in the direction of Samsung and Apple. Just days after Strategy Analytics published a global smartphone shipment report for Q3 2011, Canalys — another formidable name in the sector — has pushed out a report of its own. Not surprisingly, the global figures line up almost precisely with what we’d already heard, with Samsung’s Q3 numbers rising above those from Apple, Nokia and the rest of the industry. The difference here, however, is the focal point on the US of A. Here in the States, Taiwan’s own HTC is pulling rank; the aforesaid handset maker edged out Apple and Samsung by shipping 5.7 million smartphones.

All told, it owned “around a quarter of the market,” with Samsung (4.9 million) claiming the second spot and Apple (4.6 million) pulling in for the bronze. Conspicuously absent from the leader board? RIM, which saw its volume decline 58 percent from a year ago and its US market share sink from 24 percent in Q3 2010 to just 9 percent this quarter. Our take? HTC (and Samsung, from a global perspective) best enjoy it while the quarter lasts — as soon as the iPhone 4S and Nokia’s spate of Windows Phone devices start figuring in, we’re guessing that the top spots will be completely up for grabs all over again.

Continue reading Canalys: HTC nips Apple, Samsung to become top smartphone vendor in US for Q3 2011

Canalys: HTC nips Apple, Samsung to become top smartphone vendor in US for Q3 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  Canalys  | Email this | Comments

Well, we already knew the original Transformer would be getting an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade sometime in the near future, and now ASUS Germany has confirmed that the quad-cored Prime and the Eee Pad Slider will also get a taste of Android’s latest OS. No semblance of a datum for release just yet, but the triumvirate of Transformers will join the upgrade queue behind ASUS’ other Android offering, the Padfone.

ASUS says Transformer Prime will arrive on Honeycomb, ICS coming later originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Tabletblog.de (Translated)  |  ASUS Germany (Facebook)  | Email this | Comments

Motorola Mobility has issued a regulatory filing outlining the loss of 800 jobs. The cut will cost the handset manufacturer $31 million — that number includes $27 million in severance and $4 million to close locations. The reason for the cuts? Bloomberg suggests that it’s part of an attempt to lower costs, as the company readies itself to join the Google family — a decision Motorola’s board will vote on in the middle of next month. This news follows last week’s earnings report, in which the mobile company reported a $32 million net loss — not the greatest financial report, sure, but a marked improvement over the prior quarter’s $56 million loss.

Motorola Mobility to drop 800 jobs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phone Scoop  |  Business Week  | Email this | Comments

This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of October 24, 2011:

• Fan of white phones? Here ya go: the BlackBerry Bold 9900, Curve 9360 and Torch 9810 can be pre-ordered on Phones4U. If white doesn’t do it for you, the Curve 9300 will be available in pink. [Stuff]
• HTC has announced its partnership with Dropbox, which means you can get 5GB of available storage on any of the company’s Android devices. [Twitter]
• A few customers on Verizon’s family plans have noticed a peculiar addition to the company’s #DATA service; when the text showing the data usage arrives, it now mentions “shared,” which may be an indication that Big Red’s on its way to offering shared data plans in the near future. [Droid-Life]
• Rumors have flown for some time about LG’s attempt at reviving the Prada series by introducing the K2 (aka the P940), and now we’re finally starting to see images of the Android device leak out. Apparently, it’ll be less than 9mm thin, offer an 8MP camera, 1.3MP front-facing cam, 21Mbps HSPA+ and have a 4.3-inch display with 1,000 nits of brightness. [PhoneArena via UnwiredView]
• Research in Motion announced BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365, which extends Microsoft Exchange Online to the BlackBerry lineup. It’s geared toward midsized businesses and enterprises. Head to the source for the details. [Microsoft-News]

Mobile Miscellany: week of October 24, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Oct 2011 09:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments